1 Peter 4:16

1 Peter 4:16. But if (any man suffers) as a Christian; that is, in the character of a Christian, or on account of his being a Christian. The verse is of great interest as one of three passages (Acts 11:20; Acts 26:28, and this one) to which the occurrence of the name Christian in the New Testament is limited, and the only passage of the kind in the Epistles. The history of the name is a question of importance. It has been held by some to have originated with the Roman authorities (Ewald). It has also been supposed to have been at first a term of ridicule (de Wette, etc.). The generally accepted account of it, however, is that it originated with the Gentiles at Antioch, that it was formed on the model of other party names, such as Herodians, Marians, Pompeians, etc. (as = the followers of Herod, Marius, Pompey, etc.), and that it designated those to whom it was applied simply as followers of the party-leader, Christ. That it arose outside the Church is inferred from such facts as these, that in the New Testament itself other names, such as ‘disciples,' ‘brethren,' ‘saints,' ‘hose of the way,' appear in use within the Church; that even Luke, who tells us where the disciples ‘were called Christians first'(Acts 11:26), does not himself apply it to believers; and that in at least two of the three New Testament instances (Acts 26:28, and the present verse) it appears to be a term used by those outside. As it is in the highest degree unlikely that the Jews (to whom the new religionists were Nazarenes, etc., Acts 24:5) should have coined a word out of the well-known Greek form of the name of their own Messiah in order to designate those whom they so bitterly opposed, it is necessary to suppose the Gentiles to have been the authors of the term. There are certain reasons, too, why it should have emerged first in Antioch, and there at the particular juncture noticed in the Acts. The Gentile element in the Church of Antioch seems to have been large enough to prevent the Church of Christ (for the first time, too, as far as can be gathered) from being easily identified with any Jewish sect, and to make it necessary for the Gentiles to find a distinctive name for it. And the time at which the Book of Acts states this to have taken place coincides with the time when Paul and Barnabas devoted a whole year to work in Antioch, and when, consequently, the growing Christian community there could scarcely fail to draw public attention to itself. The name which was thus made for the Church by those outside it, was soon adopted by Christians themselves, and gloried in as their most proper title, while it as soon became a term of obloquy with others. By the time of the great Apologists, and probably before the close of the second century, a play upon the name had become common, ‘Christians' being pronounced ‘Christians' i.e followers of the Good, or Kind, One; which form appears occasionally in the manuscripts.

let him not be ashamed; or, think it a shame (cf. specially Romans 1:16; 2 Timothy 1:8; 2 Timothy 1:12).

but glorify God in this name. The reading ‘in this name' is better supported than the one which the A V. renders ‘on this behalf,' and which means simply ‘in this matter' (it occurs again in the ‘in this respect' of 2 Corinthians 3:10, and the ‘in this behalf' of 2 Corinthians 9:3). The phrase ‘in this name' goes back either upon the term ‘Christian,' or on the ‘in the name of Christ' in 1 Peter 4:14. Those who were called to suffer for being Christians were to regard that not as a shameful thing, but as an honourable, and they were to suffer not in the spirit which took honour to themselves, but in that which gave all the glory to the God who counted them worthy of such a vocation. How soon in the history of the Church was martyrdom courted for its own sake in the spirit of the subtlest glorification of self!